The present invention is concerned primarily with the handling of certain flowable products in bulk form, on both wholesale and retail levels. More specifically, the invention is directed to the packaging of such products to facilitate transporting, storing and dispensing them. The products include a wide variety of primarily dry, bulk products, like rice and beans, but may also include certain liquids.
Mexican and Chinese restaurants in particular use rice and beans in large quantities on a daily basis and thus purchase and store them in large-size containers. Currently, bulk rice is typically bought and stored by the restaurant trade in twenty-five and fifty pound paper or plastic bags and dispensed from such bags during food preparation. Although this has been the practice for many years, there are several problems with the use of such bags for these dry bulk products. Paper bags are subject to puncture, breakage, and invasion by rodents and other pests during handling and storage of dry bulk products by both the restaurant supply and the restaurant. Moreover, such large, heavy bags are awkward to grasp and, for by certain personnel, may be too heavy or cumbersome for lifting, carrying, and dispensing. In addition, once the bags are opened, the product may lose freshness since the bag may not be closed nor be capable of subsequent tight closure. Also, the non-rectilinear shape of bags when full, and their irregular shapes when partially full, prevent their storage in an efficient manner.
A restaurant typically stores rice and beans in their separate bags in which they were purchased and dispenses them from these bags during food preparation. In one way of dispensing, a bag is lifted, opened and then tipped so that a certain amount flows by gravity into a cup, basin or other container. Afterwards, the bag is returned to its storage location, with closure being somewhat problematical. Such handling may result in spillage and waste not only during dispensing but during subsequent storage; it also may cause unwanted overflow into other foods being prepared, may make gauging the amount dispensed more difficult, and may be tiring especially when the bags are full. Another way of dispensing is to scoop the product out of an open bag, in which case some of the same problems remain. For typical Mexican menu items and for other preparations, the packaging and dispensing methods described above require accessing two separate bags, one for rice and one for beans, so that the process is repeated twice.
In addition to such commercial establishments, households or other organizations may buy, store and dispense large quantities of dry bulk or liquid products wherein certain of the foregoing problems also exist. Furthermore, there are also a multitude of other flowable products besides rice and beans, both dry and liquid, where improved packaging might improve storage and dispensing of the product. Such products may include many dry bulk products, food or otherwise, such as pet foods, cereals, coffees, pastas, nuts, jelly beans, and powdered milk, laundry and washing detergents, marbles, BB's fertilizer pellets, injection molding pellets and may include many liquid products, such as bulk wines, juices, drink mixes, and water.
With certain of these products that are related during serving or use, like rice and beans but also different pet foods, different cereals, and different detergents, for example, their packaging in separate containers may add to the storing and dispensing inefficiencies noted above, both in commercial and domestic applications. If on a regular basis, a user desires to mix products together for consumption, for example two different cereals, it is necessary to access two different boxes or other containers.
Applicants are unaware of any packaging that addresses or solves the foregoing problems. Paperboard containers intended to hold and dispense single bulk products are of course notoriously old, but they require the package to be lifted and tipped to dispense the product, and they have other shortcomings insofar as the problems discussed above are concerned. Plastic dispensing bins are disclosed in the Elmore, Saunders and Weaver U.S. Pat. Nos. Des. 326,983; Des. 335,242; and Des. 296,405, respectively, but these are intended to be filled by the user from packages in which the product was purchased; are not suitable for distributing the product; waste space in the container that might otherwise contain more product; and are incapable of separately containing and dispensing one or two products from separate compartments in the container. Dual condiment dispensers, for salt and pepper for example, have long been known, such as disclosed in the Bounds U.S. Pat. No. 4,193,531, but these are unsuitable for containing and dispensing large quantities of flowable products, they must be tilted to dispense the product, and they are unable selectively to dispense substantially all of their contents in a controlled manner merely by gravitational flow.